Black-headed gulls screeched and dived for the bread the kids threw for the swans. ' They're called cygnet' the helmeted little lad on the bike informed us. I tried to tell him about the preen gland but he wasn't having it. 'They are waterproof' he insisted. They just are. His mother told him I was right but he wasn't having it.We like a child with a spirit of inquiry and he biked about us beside Abbot Hall playground.

The cygnets' developing wings show now more clearly, small and rounded, darker down with a paler fringe. You can see new feathers pushing up through the soft down. Altogether, they're a delight. Another family watched them from the riverside, throwing bread and chatting away in English and in Spanish. I like the floral motif of umbellifers and swans with cygnets too.